


in the embers (we live and die)

by ironarana



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Author feels many emotions about both of them, Emily Prentiss Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, criminal minds - Freeform, criminal minds one shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironarana/pseuds/ironarana
Summary: “Reid,” she starts then  inhales and exhales, her shoulders rising and falling. “Reid, you were tortured and beaten for two days. And you just wanted it all to be over.”“I know,” he chokes out. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I feel guilty about it.”Or, Emily and Reid bond over their brushes with death and make promises to each other.(Set after 7x7)
Relationships: Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	in the embers (we live and die)

After, on the jet on their way home, Emily sinks down into a leather chair with a sigh. 

She’s dressed down in lounge clothes: black sweats and a faded band tee shirt. Her hair is loose around her shoulders and her face is bare. Most flights home, they wear normal clothes but tonight, Emily is tired. And so, it seems, is Reid. 

A hardcover book is sitting in his hands but Emily’s been silently watching him from across the aisle and she knows he hasn’t turned a page in a while so he’s not really reading it, which means his mind must be elsewhere. His hazel eyes are distant but not cold. A little sad and lost, like he’s reading the words but not really understanding them, like they’re devoid of whatever meaning they surely must hold. 

She’s learned to recognize his tells, when he’s drowning in his own head, and she knows how to throw him a liferaft to save him from himself. So she moved to sit across from him and now, she tilts her head, offers a small, teasing smile and softly says, “Hey, handsome.” 

Reid casts his thousand yard stare from the book in his hands to her and she watches light return to them. She thinks she missed that the most while she was away, the light in his eyes. His mouth flickers with a smile. “Hey,” he echoes, voice rusted. 

“You okay?” she asks because she knows Reid doesn’t like when his team beats around the bush. Better to be honest and straightforward. 

Reid’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

Emily crosses one leg over the other, leans her head against the wall of the jet. “Well, I’m sure talking about Tobias Hankel couldn’t have been easy for you.” 

Something shifts over Reid’s face like a shadow, like remembrance, and then whatever emotion was there vanishes like it’d never even been there at all. There’s darkness around the edges of his eyes and she knows he’s struggling with a memory. She knows there’s two sides of himself warring against each other. His desire to remain secretive versus his desire to be known. She knows this because it’s a battle she constantly fights too. Every day. 

“It’s always hard, I guess, but it does get easier,” Reid confesses in the low lighting of the jet. “Like I can-I can breathe when I say his name, you know?” 

She does. “Ian Doyle” catches in her throat whenever she says it, her lungs tight, her heart stuttering behind her ribs. It’s not easier for her. Not yet. 

“You never told me you died,” Reid suddenly says, out of nowhere, but she knew he’d mention it sooner or later. 

_There are lots of things I haven’t told you,_ Emily thinks but doesn’t say because Reid hates not knowing things and she hates it too. Instead, she admits, “It’s not something I like to talk about” which is the truth. 

She’s told too many lies. Her biggest was letting the team believe she’d died, which wasn’t technically a lie, but then again, wasn’t it? She vowed to herself if she ever made it home to them she wouldn’t lie or hide secrets from them ever again. Of course, there will always be things she’s never ready to talk about because the scars are too fresh and her heart is too battered but she’d try. For them, she’d try. 

Reid nods slowly to himself and she can see the wheels turning and whirring in his head, thinking. Always thinking. His face is growing dark again as he retreats into himself and the safety of his own mind. She doesn’t want to lose him to himself, not now, not ever. She reaches a hand across the table between them and her fingers brush over the back of his hand. She needs something to hold onto and right now, so does he. 

“Reid...talk to me,” she begs with an underlying desperation hidden in her voice. Her dark eyes are round with fear, brows drawn together in concern. Her heart thrums in her chest. 

Reid sniffs, his nose twitching in a rare show of hidden emotion, and then he folds his book and sets it aside, Emily’s hands falling away. His eyes are staring at something underneath the table. Emily can feel the minute vibrations of Reid’s leg bouncing with anxiety. 

“Um,” he starts and his voice shakes with wetness as he swallows hard. It hits her that the Reid she is seeing right now is almost an entirely different Reid in contrast to the one who relayed his experience with Tobias Hankel with steady factualness. The one before her is tentative and nervous and vulnerable and Emily has to fight down a sudden, swallowing urge of protectiveness. 

“When I-I died, I said I felt a warmth and I saw a light. It was...strange but it was nice cause for the first time in a long time, everything was quiet and I-I felt calm and at peace with myself.” A sad smile flickers across his face, his gaze shining with melancholy. Emily nods so he knows she’s listening but she doesn’t ask him to go on. She knows he’ll share as much as he’s comfortable with. Questions only close him off and right now, he’s letting her in. “That’s not what scared me though, what scared me is that I wanted to stay.” 

A soft breath escapes her and she feels like she’s been shot through the heart, like she’s dying all over again. She didn’t realize how much Reid has held back all these years and how crushing it would be to realize that once he died, he wanted to stay that way. 

And she doesn’t know why and she wants to beg and scream at him for a reason but she also knows she’ll never understand why he feels this way or what goes on inside that beautiful, tormented mind of his. She wants him to let her in and wants to know him fully, but he has walls, just like she does, and there’s no way in unless he lowers the drawbridge all the way. 

“I-I only thought it for a second,” Reid continues, still not meeting her gaze. His face is flushed with shame. “And I thought if I stopped thinking about it I’d just forget. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.” He sniffles and itches at his nose before he hides his hands underneath the table. 

Emily swallows hard, her throat thick with emotion. She doesn’t remember when Reid became blurry but when she rubs at her eyes and her knuckles come back wet, every saddened microexpression etched into his features is clear. 

“Reid,” she starts then inhales and exhales, her shoulders rising and falling. “Reid, you were tortured and beaten for two days. And you just wanted it all to be over.” 

Reid nods slowly and then his eyes meet hers. They only lock for a second but Emily swears she sees into his soul. His tattered, resilient soul. His brave, brilliant heart. 

“I know,” he chokes out. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I feel guilty about it.” 

And Emily isn’t sure where to go with that. She can’t make the guilt go away. She knows, she’s tried. Every time they sit at a briefing and she scans all the faces of her team members, she feels the same way. She doesn’t know if there will ever come a day where she won’t hate herself for lying to them and leaving them. 

She leans forward, her elbows resting against the table. “Spencer, listen to me,” she says and there’s a weight to her words. “The world is better with you in it. And you are not alone in this, okay?” 

Reid doesn’t answer her. 

Unbidden, her body floods with warmth and then she shivers with a sudden cold as Ian Doyle’s maniacal, bloodstained smile surges forward from where she’d buried it in the back of her mind. She feels like she’s falling as Morgan begs her to stay with him. Her ears whine as a heart monitor nearby flatlines and then she blinks and she’s back and her heartstrings are tugging her in the direction of honesty and vulnerability.

_Tell him,_ it urges. _Tell him what happened._

And then it’s her turn to show the hidden Emily, the one few rarely ever see, the one she chooses to show moments like these. When the world has gone silent, and the light is low, and the jet is humming around them. 

“I already said when I died that I felt cold and I saw a darkness,” she confesses and it hurts but she goes on. “But what scared me is that I was alone. And I didn’t want to be and I think when we both died, we were both scared of being alone, just in different ways. You were scared you wanted to be and I was scared I was. But the truth is we need people, Reid. And if I learned anything at all it’s that no matter how scared or alone you are, there’s always going to be someone with a flashlight, waving it and screaming your name and searching for you. Begging you to come home no matter what.” 

She lets the moment settle like a blanket over their shoulders. Reid’s face starts to return to normal like the darkness has lifted and the light comes back to his eyes. Emily holds back a sigh of relief. She saved him, in a way, but in another way, they saved each other. 

“You know, the same goes for you,” Reid adds. “You’re not alone either and there’s always gonna be someone there for you. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t have been. There for you, that is. When you…” 

“I know,” Emily says with a soft smile. “But it wasn’t your fault. And don’t you dare ever blame yourself for what happened, okay? Not now, not ever. Promise me.” 

“You first,” Reid says and Emily wants to dig her heels in and be stubborn because of course, she blames herself. Not as much as JJ does but still. 

A burst of breath escapes her as she shakes her head and smiles teasingly. Her mouth slants into a smirk as she sets her elbow on the table and raises her pinkie. “I promise.” 

And Reid shifts in his seat, and moves his arm, and wraps his pinkie around hers. Then they both fall into a soft fit of laughter because everyone else is sleeping but there’s still one more thing left unsettled. 

“Just do me a favor and don’t die again, okay?” she asks. 

Reid nods. “I won’t if you won’t.” 

Emily smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> ....so anyways i am emotionally compromised and i have invested too much emotion into emily and reid's friendship and you will have to pry their friendship from my cold dead arms before i stop having emotions about them okay
> 
> this is my first cm fanfic so be kind okay? lemme know in the comments if you liked it or not
> 
> title taken from in the embers by sleeping at last
> 
> love you guys!


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